As Told To is a recurring segment on xoNecole where real women are given a platform to tell their stories in first-person narrative as told to a writer. If you have a story you'd like to share but aren't sure about how to put it into words, contact us at submissions@xonecole.com with the subject "As Told To" for your story to be featured.
This is Rah Ali's story, as told to Taylor Honore.
As strong as I am as a person; as a woman, the one thing I was always scared of was having a baby. Although I knew that I wanted to have a child, finding out that I was pregnant was still a very scary moment because it was like, it's happening; it's now. So, I needed to adjust myself.
After I got confirmation, I finally accepted it, and I was really happy. But I was also really scared. And then, once I started to get into it, I would watch my stomach, looking for some type of change in my body.
I felt it before I saw it physically.
From there, I was focused on making sure that that this child was stable. I wanted to make sure that I lived away from any type of chaos. I wanted to make sure that she had a big bedroom and she had a playroom. All the things that I didn't need when it was just me, I wanted to make sure that she had. So, I started the process of buying a house and also made sure that I changed the way I was eating. It's just so different. You don't just think about yourself anymore, you really just think about your kid.
I'm a planner and a person who writes down everything and tries my hardest to control the flow of things. I did a lot of planning, but what happened next in my life was something I couldn't prepare for or control.
On May 26, five months into my pregnancy, I suffered a miscarriage.
I was halfway through my pregnancy and I remember I had this app on my phone that would tell me every single week what was happening in my body. I feel like the hardest part was accepting that my daughter is completely... that there is no more. Although I know she's always with me, I just feel like we were like on a journey together and I was excited to meet her. It's hard accepting that she's not here.
After the loss of my child, I overanalyzed everything because I'm not a very vulnerable person… ever. That was really the first time that I got to see myself in that state because things really genuinely don't bother me.
That was the first time I could really say, okay, I'm messed up right now. I'm broken. This is really bad. This is horrible. I can't even breathe. I can't even talk. I can't even, I can't, I can't even believe this. Now there's no, "I'm just going to be hard and strong and I'm the rock that's holding everybody else up."
It just took me to a place where I knew that I needed to prioritize what was important and who was there the most.
At this point in my pregnancy loss journey, I just want to get through it.
I want to work on talking about the healing process because hopefully, that's something that could be helpful to someone else. This is something that's very common, which is something I didn't know and I'm trying to do my part in actually bringing awareness to it because people don't really realize how often it happens. At least if you're informed, you can deal with what you have to deal with. It's not like it won't hurt you, but you at least you'd understand that this is something that can happen. And I wasn't aware of that.
What I'd tell the next woman trying to heal after pregnancy loss is to go to therapy. Talk about what you're feeling. Don't bottle up your emotions, express them and just keep faith. Throughout this experience, there has not been one time where I've questioned God's will. I'm healthy and able to get up and work towards my goals.
You cannot feel sorry for yourself because you're experienced in life.
We jump for joy and thank God when things are great and expect that nothing is going happen in life that you don't agree with or don't think is fair. I think we all experience hardship and we all experience lessons and we need to be thankful for them all and be able to take the good and the bad from it. I can only say what my experience was, which is actually talking, actually crying and working through it. It's nothing that anyone else can do.
You have to work through it. Know that you will get through it and that there will be brighter days ahead.
For more of Rah Ali, follow her on Instagram.
Featured image courtesy of Rah Ali.